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+--- Thread: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice (/Thread-Beyblade-Hobby-Community-Advice)
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Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Shokkazuluman - Apr. 12, 2016
Well, cutting straight to the chase, I just find it a tad difficult to keep up my enthusiasm for Beyblade. As much as I love it, and enjoy talking to the community, it's just difficult for me to keep it up. While I can go to the community online, there isn't much love for it in my area, so I have no one to share my love for it with IRL. I've tried to get my friends into it, but none of them really share my intrest. Even going as far as just buying them is a bit of a chore due to how expensive it can be, for example, Victory Valkyrie is $35.00 on Amazon, though that can be solved by finding a more reasonbly priced vendor, I know they're out there.
The main problem is lack of localization in my area. It would be easy if it were like a TCG where I can just google cardshops, and go play Vanguard or Magic at a local cardshop. (though admitingly a legitamite beyshop would be pretty rad)
I just honestly, don't know what to do about it all. It saddens me really because, as I said, I LOVE beyblade and everything about it. I love the game, collecting the different Beys and thinking up and testing different combonations, I love the anime and coming up with OCs and special moves when I doze off. I just, don't know if I can scourge up the motivation to keep up. Even if I do find a cheeper provider, and get them for collection and play with on my own, I won't ever get the thrill of battling another blader with passion for it like mine.
So, as a community of bladers who love the fame as much as I do, probably more, what do you guys think? Any words of advice or something for the situation at hand? dunno, maybe I'm thinking too much into it.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Bey Brad - Apr. 12, 2016
Hey Shokkazuluman,
I think your situation is one that a lot of people are going through right now! Ultimately, there's not a lot you can do other than try to introduce new players to the game. It will be a lot easier once Hasbro launches Beyblade Burst, which is happening in North America this year and elsewhere in the world in 2017.
As for pricing ... I mean, you yourself said that there are cheaper sellers out there. There indeed are, and we write about them all the time here, yet people insist on using prices from random resellers on Amazon as some kind of standard. We can only help you as much as you want to help yourself in that regard :')
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Shokkazuluman - Apr. 12, 2016
Do you know where I can find cheaper costing Beys?
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Bey Brad - Apr. 12, 2016
You can buy them direct from Japan using a shopping service (there are guides here), but hlj.com has the best prices. Only downside is that their stock is pretty limited, so pre-ordering when possible is advised.
You can learn more here: https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-Where-to-buy-Beyblade-Burst-products-from-Japan
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Beylon - Apr. 13, 2016
I'd like to continue this discussion. It has been mentioned elsewhere many times in the past but it just seems so relevant to so many people, all over the world, that I think it deserves its own topic dedicated to the issue as it stands now, rather than lumped in with previous discussions driven by different factors.
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So the big issue here is usually said to be localisation. That is pretty simple. There is no local support for Beyblade right now, in most parts of the world. That means there is no publicity feeding the toys to new players. At the very least then, the Beyblade community will not grow naturally in local areas.
In turn, existing players suffer from stagnation. Even if they have a regular group of die-hards from the previous series of toys, there's only so much that group can achieve with the old toys before the local metagame stagnates.
The solution to this stagnation problem, right now, is to buy the new series of Beyblade releases. But that has its own drawbacks. It is just plain annoying to buy Beyblade stuff through non-mainsteam providers; which is why everyone uses Amazon as a standard for pricing. It also means new releases are more expensive than their localised counterparts, for basically no added value; which is even more annoying still.
In this case, somebody has to stand up and lead the local community. There needs to be someone recruiting new players, providing easy access to new releases (reselling), organising venues, running events, promoting the product, etc, etc, etc. Generally, the people with the means to do all this are getting considerably older than target Beyblade audience.
Sadly, the older people best suited to driving a local Beyblade community often have more important (and stressful) things to worry about in life than a game; and not much to relate to the younger audience anyway. The die-hard players tend to be older people with better things to do. They still love Beyblade but they're not going to go out of their way to gamble on people showing up to a tournament.
My thoughts on the solution:
Obviously, just wait until Burst is released and everything will be magically fixed. However, for people in countries that never even saw Zero-G, this will not be of much comfort. Australia had a pretty decent Beyblade scene back in the day but we never saw the latest releases. India didn't see them until this year. I can't explain why that happened but it seems reasonable to assume things won't be much different this time around.
My biggest problem with Beyblade in general is that it is still marketed as a kids toy. I don't need to explain or justify how this does not mean adults cannot play and enjoy the game; we all got over that issue last millenium. But this does unfortunately mean that the uninitiated adult gaming community almost uniformly has a preconceived notion of what Beyblade is - and how it plays. Everyone I have ever interviewed about this topic genuinely believes Beyblade is a juvenile game of "chance" and they're all old enough to have more pressing things to do than prove themselves wrong.
If the issues raised in this thread are going to be overcome in a sustainable way, I feel the local people who promote Beyblade because they want to actually play the game need to start presenting a counter-argument to the kids-toy marketing it receives from TT and Hasbro.
I propose taking that idea one step further; by completely stripping the Beyblade idea of its anime roots. Sorry guys, I know a lot of you love the anime but the vast majority of the universe simply cannot tolerate it. I believe the anime has a lot to answer for in scaring away the older audience and I believe catering to the older audience specifically is the key to sustained local interest in Beyblade.
The WBO basically does this already (thanks guys) but it is not the WBO which will attract local players. It will be the efforts of individual, older fans who tailor specific events which present the game as a mature and adult way to spend a few hours after work. We all have jobs, guys, start running tournaments after hours! Events themselves need to be structured less like a gathering of obscure-japanese-card-game enthusiasts and more as a normal and socially acceptible gathering of friends for networking (which is just a bigotted observation from Australia which I accept might not apply to other parts of the world, and good on you guys, but I think you know what I mean). If nothing else, there needs to be beer and coffee!
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Bey Brad - Apr. 13, 2016
Always interesting to read your thoughts, Beylon.
I have to fundamentally disagree though, that the issue is that Beyblade is marketed as a kid's toy. This is the case in Japan as well, yet due to the combination of certain official events being all-ages, a thriving unofficial competitive scene, and the density of population and ubiquity of product availability, this hasn't proven to be a huge issue. I think any discussion about Beyblade has to begin with the acceptance of the fact that it's a toy for children. But Pokémon is also a game for kids; that doesn't mean there isn't depth there, waiting to be discovered.
I don't have a lot of love for the anime either (particularly in its current form), but many fans of all ages do, and suggesting that we attempt to divorce the game from it entirely is to turn our backs on a lot of people who love Beyblade a lot, or have the potential to love Beyblade a lot. Many of us old-timers would have never heard about Beyblade without the anime existing. I know Kai-V and myself both would not be here today. The WBO's existence, then, can be credited to the anime in some form.
Assuming that the only thing keeping competitive toy spinning tops that look like monsters out of the hands of gamers is a cartoon show is naive; the truth is that the idea is just a hard sell, and it's a demanding game to keep up with competitively. Those who are predisposed to disliking it are probably not going to be convinced otherwise. People who are already interested in — or at least not turned off by — franchises like Pokémon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc. are much more likely to actually pick up and enjoy the game.
That probably explains why our most successful avenue for recruiting new players thus-far has been presence at anime conventions. The difficult part of this is actually scaling it out and building presence at multiple events, consistently, throughout the year. Running events at conventions can be a stressful undertaking, so it's understandable why few are willing to do it. (That said — the WBO is, as always, willing to help! Reach out if you want to run an event at a con!)
At the same time, we should continue to produce more content that is accessible for all ages — simple enough for kids to understand, yet created with a respect for the audience's intelligence that means teens and adults won't find it insufferable. But this isn't Magic: the Gathering or esports or whatever, and it never will be, and it never should be. Beyblade's accessibility, it's pick-up-and-play nature, its accomodation to players of all skill and interest levels are some of its greatest assets.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Latios300000 - Apr. 14, 2016
Its hard i know. For me its the same thing. Im 19, i dont have a job and none of my friends beyblade. So for me i dont have any one to beybattle with aswell. BUT......if you love the hobby, you dont need any one else. For exaple a TCG game that i love called chaotic. I love this game but i have no one to play with. But i found that its like beyblade, i dont need someone to play with. Some games like UNO, or blackjack, or boardgames, those you definetly need at least two people. BUT the beauty of beyblade and tcg is that you DONT need more then 1. Even if the game was made for 2 or more. Beyblade and tcg is one of the few that techincly doesnt even if it was made for two. I my self NEVER get bored of the game nor do i feel lonely playing it cuz we have this great comunity online. And even if we didnt, id still play because its fun, its exiting, and its a hobby. Another thing that helps is my youtube account. Making videos, showing people beyblades,reviewing them, talking about them and just having fun making videos with them. Think of pomemon. Many people dont have friends who play the games or the pokemon tcg. But that person still plays them any way right. So dont worry about non of your friends beyblading. Just have fun its our hobby along other things.like i said at the start of this post i dont have a job, i dont have much money. So when i cant i dont buy a bey for a little bit untill i can. I look for the cheepest price. So all i am saying is......just have fun man, its a sport, a game, a hobby
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Captain_Pancake - May. 04, 2016
The problem with playing by yourself is that one could get bored with the game (not just beyblade, tcg, and other games too) and it's probably hard for some people to justify at that point to continue spending on the hobby itself aside from collecting purposes.
(Apr. 12, 2016 1:59 PM)Shokkazuluman Wrote: The main problem is lack of localization in my area. It would be easy if it were like a TCG where I can just google cardshops, and go play Vanguard or Magic at a local cardshop. (though admitingly a legitamite beyshop would be pretty rad)
The way I see it, card shops are probably your best bet in terms of trying to set something up especially if you tell them you have X amount of people interested in participating. Bonus if the store sells Beyblades too because that's good sales promotion for them.
Not only that card shops are probably the best place to introduce people to Beyblade. Many people that shop at card stores are into comics, anime, games, & collectables. Try chatting some people up and see if they would be interested in playing Beyblade.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Zoroaste - May. 04, 2016
Yeah. I totally feel the same way @[Shokkazuluman] I absolutely love beyblade and have a monster collection, butbit doesn't mean much when there is nobody to play with.
But just wait. Burst will be released here in North America inna matter of mere months and I think that Burst is more attractive than MFB was. I think we will see the largest amount of active bladers on this site that we have ever seen. There will probably be a lot of people returning and tons of people that are brand new to it too.
My state only has 3 bladers that I know of amd none of them will respond to me. It's hard for me especially because I am like 30 and probably seem like a weirdo wanting to competitively play with kids toys.
Anyway... here is my plan for when Burst drops:
1. Obviously post about it on Facebook and talk it up with your friends. A lot of them will probably think it's dumb, but if you can yet them to try it then they will probably like it. Once they understand all of the complex strategies involved and the fast paced action, then will be more apt to want to get into it. Really play up the saying, "it's like chess, it takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master" and also play up the fact that every match is exciting because either player could burst at any time. But make sure they know that it's not about luck and is a game of skill. Like poker, in the short tern the luck is more apparent, but in the long term, the better player will win more than an inexperienced one
2. I am going to go to any kind of video game, card game or whatever types of stores and ask to demo Burst and try to get them to sell them.
3. Go to stores that already are selling them and ask the manager to demo. Tell them that you will help sell their beys if you can lromote WBO
4. Go to any kind of anime or comic or collectables convention and buy a table or whatver and demo and have people battle me and each other
5. Post flyers and give out cards. Any kind of community bulletin board or anywhere that is legal to post where i thi n k the right type of people will see it.
I am going to build a community in my area, from scratch. It is going to happen. I am sure you can too. If anyone else has any ideas on how to spread the word. Please share
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - The Supreme One - May. 04, 2016
I definitely understand how you feel. After living in Florida for a while and not being able to play against people on occasion like I did in Connecticut, I started to lose a little of my passion for the game. I love purchasing Beyblades, but when they're a big portion of your budget and all you can use them for is testing, you become less motivated to buy them than you would be if others around you shared your interest.
The best thing you can do really is to talk about it with a friend and try to get them involved. Even though none of my friends in college are interested in purchasing Beyblades, when I bring them to our board and card game club, they'll usually try them out, and sometimes that alone is enough to pull me back into the hobby again. If you babysit, you could also bring them with you; I know that really worked for me when I was living at home. If you don't think it's worth it to stay competitive for now, it's totally okay to hold off until they're localized & hopefully more of your friends will want to get involved. Best of luck to you, and do your best not to let that passion die!
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Beylon - May. 05, 2016
(Apr. 12, 2016 1:59 PM)Shokkazuluman Wrote: Well, cutting straight to the chase, I just find it a tad difficult to keep up my enthusiasm for Beyblade.
Also, if it's motivation you're looking for, as well as a thriving community, it might be worth your while reading my blog here on the WBO called Formula Bei as it discusses the real-world history of Beyblade, examining the designers and the direction of the game. All the old episodes are collected neatly on the front page now!
You'll see in the blog that I'm one of those annoying bey-machanics who is constantly building my own illegal beyblades and telling everyone how awesome they are. Well, guys like Lowen93 have made whole threads for this kind of thing (making metal versions of old plastic beyblades) and I find this kind of inspirational posting on the WBO can do wonders for renewed enthusiasm.
Point is, there are aspects of the game beyond the game itself which don't always require a constant community to keep alive.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Neo - May. 07, 2016
One of my sort of peeves is that the majority of Beyblade videos produced on the internet feel a bit lackluster. Youtube; it's usually cluttered with tons of music only battle videos, frankly lame unboxings, and never any sort of mature look of the tops. The closest would be p0urS0meSugar0nme's videos, but even they lack some knowledge and he only demos the tops in stock form. I'd crave for more videos such as the infamous SLiding Shoot video, produced on the WBO Channel. I believe those types of videos are the best sort of media to stray people away from the stigma of Beyblade being a toy for elementary schoolers. Something to look at, like the physics of how they spin, in-depth views of stadiums and how they affect certain tops. These sort of topics would be amazing to see viewed, instead of the usual "HEY GYuIS ITZ THE UNBOXZINGZ OF THE NNEW BAYBLAD". No offense to any creators of non-educational Beyblade content, but personally I think that more educational content would benefit the majority instead of unboxings or stock/AMV battles.
Thinking sort of something like Melee tutorials, or the in-depth mechanics of how a certain combo is dominant, why its shape makes it ward off attacks or something of the sort.
Sorry for the tangent~
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kai-V - May. 08, 2016
You and I share the same goal hah. The biggest issue has obviously been time, but hopefully sooner rather than later we can produce more educational videos that will help.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Zoroaste - May. 08, 2016
Yeah I really don't like unboxings and "reviews" by people who don't know what they are even talking about. And who cares about stock battles. I think if the WBO, or anyone for that matter, were to start coming out with a really good competitive channel, it would do a lot to attract people to competitive play and make that person or the WBO a lot of money. The problem is climbing the seemingly impossible search engine hit ladder, but I think with the sliding shoot vid and some others on there, you may get a bit of a head start, not sure exactly how it works though. I have thought about doing it for a long time, but I am lazy and use the search engine hit thing as an excuse to not even try. Besides the fact that I would be doing it entirely from my phone. Lol
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kevo - May. 08, 2016
(May. 07, 2016 11:44 PM)Neo Wrote: One of my sort of peeves is that the majority of Beyblade videos produced on the internet feel a bit lackluster. Youtube; it's usually cluttered with tons of music only battle videos, frankly lame unboxings, and never any sort of mature look of the tops. The closest would be p0urS0meSugar0nme's videos, but even they lack some knowledge and he only demos the tops in stock form. I'd crave for more videos such as the infamous SLiding Shoot video, produced on the WBO Channel. I believe those types of videos are the best sort of media to stray people away from the stigma of Beyblade being a toy for elementary schoolers. Something to look at, like the physics of how they spin, in-depth views of stadiums and how they affect certain tops. These sort of topics would be amazing to see viewed, instead of the usual "HEY GYuIS ITZ THE UNBOXZINGZ OF THE NNEW BAYBLAD". No offense to any creators of non-educational Beyblade content, but personally I think that more educational content would benefit the majority instead of unboxings or stock/AMV battles.I previously discussed this with someone on this forum before, but the main reason people like us (Beyblade Youtubers) often make videos like that is because the audience itself only takes interest in those types of videos. For the most part, the audience isn't that educated itself and has no desire to become educated. But really, I can speak for most Beyblade channels when we just want to entertain people with our videos, not educate.
Thinking sort of something like Melee tutorials, or the in-depth mechanics of how a certain combo is dominant, why its shape makes it ward off attacks or something of the sort.
Sorry for the tangent~
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Bey Brad - May. 08, 2016
(May. 08, 2016 8:20 PM)Kevo Wrote: I previously discussed this with someone on this forum before, but the main reason people like us (Beyblade Youtubers) often make videos like that is because the audience itself only takes interest in those types of videos. For the most part, the audience isn't that educated itself and has no desire to become educated. But really, I can speak for most Beyblade channels when we just want to entertain people with our videos, not educate.
Our sliding shoot video has 3 million views, Our "types" video has 600,000 views, and I've rarely seen any other videos of their nature on YouTube. So that seems like a big, baseless assumption.
I agree with Neo that this kind of content is really lacking on YouTube, and we haven't really stepped up to release new versions of these videos or new content that's educational in nature, either.
One of my major goals when rejoining the WBO was to produce more content like this, but business + a lack of equipment have kept me from getting anywhere. But we've found an alternate path forward, and hopefully can talk more about it soon.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kevo - May. 08, 2016
(May. 08, 2016 8:29 PM)Bey Brad Wrote:I disagree. There's more stock battles with more views on Youtube... I'm not trying to say there's no use to make those videos, but it will be difficult with the current audience that we have now.(May. 08, 2016 8:20 PM)Kevo Wrote: I previously discussed this with someone on this forum before, but the main reason people like us (Beyblade Youtubers) often make videos like that is because the audience itself only takes interest in those types of videos. For the most part, the audience isn't that educated itself and has no desire to become educated. But really, I can speak for most Beyblade channels when we just want to entertain people with our videos, not educate.
Our sliding shoot video has 3 million views, Our "types" video has 600,000 views, and I've rarely seen any other videos of their nature on YouTube. So that seems like a big, baseless assumption.
I agree with Neo that this kind of content is really lacking on YouTube, and we haven't really stepped up to release new versions of these videos or new content that's educational in nature, either.
One of my major goals when rejoining the WBO was to produce more content like this, but business + a lack of equipment have kept me from getting anywhere. But we've found an alternate path forward, and hopefully can talk more about it soon.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Bey Brad - May. 08, 2016
The question isn't whether or not those videos have the biggest audience, but whether they have a reasonably sized audience at all. And history has proven they do, even when those videos are low quality and inconsistent. The fact is that this niche is almost entirely unexplored, so it's premature to say there's no audience.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kevo - May. 08, 2016
(May. 08, 2016 8:39 PM)Bey Brad Wrote: The question isn't whether or not those videos have the biggest audience, but whether they have a reasonably sized audience at all. And history has proven they do, even when those videos are low quality and inconsistent. The fact is that this niche is almost entirely unexplored, so it's premature to say there's no audience.Even if that is true, why is it that no one else has made educational videos besides you guys? (WBO channel) You would think after several years that at least someone else would catch onto that concept and go with it.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Bey Brad - May. 08, 2016
Because it's:
1. A lot more work
2. Requires you to be both a talented editor AND have in-depth knowledge about the game, leaving a very small pool of potential producers
3. People assume there is no audience for it without even trying
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kevo - May. 08, 2016
(May. 08, 2016 8:46 PM)Bey Brad Wrote: Because it's:That makes sense. I guess that's why no one else will probably ever do it.
1. A lot more work
2. Requires you to be both a talented editor AND have in-depth knowledge about the game, leaving a very small pool of potential producers
3. People assume there is no audience for it without even trying
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Zoroaste - May. 08, 2016
I think that the biggest barrier is that its so hard to climb the search engine hit ladder. And yeah, it takes a lot of time to be a top tier blader and it takes a lot of time to have a successful channel. There are very few people who could do both
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kevo - May. 08, 2016
There's really no payoff for what it demands out of you.
Honestly I'd really like to see someone else besides the WBO channel to attempt this and see how far they get. Cause discussing it sure isn't going to change much.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Mitsu - May. 08, 2016
Quote:Our sliding shoot video has 3 million views, Our "types" video has 600,000 views, and I've rarely seen any other videos of their nature on YouTube. So that seems like a big, baseless assumption.
Those videos were uploaded both 6 and 7 years ago, though. The fanbase did since then and likewise did the Beyblade Youtube ''community''. It's unfortunate to say that people aren't interested in being educated. They, for the most part, like super over-edited videos with generic dubstep music playing in the background, which is a good majority of the content uploaded to Youtube.
RE: Beyblade Hobby/Community Advice - Kevo - May. 08, 2016
(May. 08, 2016 9:46 PM)Mitsu Wrote:This.Quote:Our sliding shoot video has 3 million views, Our "types" video has 600,000 views, and I've rarely seen any other videos of their nature on YouTube. So that seems like a big, baseless assumption.
Those videos were uploaded both 6 and 7 years ago, though. The fanbase did since then and likewise did the Beyblade Youtube ''community''. It's unfortunate to say that people aren't interested in being educated. They, for the most part, like super over-edited videos with generic dubstep music playing in the background, which is a good majority of the content uploaded to Youtube.
There's no better way to say it. Thank you.